My one regular tournament at the moment is the 4pm start at G. 25,000 chips, plus an extra 2,500 for regging by 3.45 and a structure that starts slow but gets pretty quick later. It"s major USP is that generally it ends on the same date that it started

Mostly it"s the usual story, 7 or 8 limpers reduced to 4 or 5 to the flop after a raise. Three bets are rarer than hen"s teeth, and tend to signify Aces, or occasionally Kings, but don"t expect people to fold.

Last night was a bit more fun...

Hand 1 50/100I open QJ from the cut off to 250, Button raises to 700, I call. Flop is Qxx I check call 1050. Turn K, I check fold to a 2300 bet. Villain flips 42 off "like a boss". I pay no heed to it other than to ask "was that good?" in a bored tone.

Hand 26 to the flop I call A8dd all but completing the action after a small EP raise.Flop A86 fd I check call a c-bet, as do three othersTurn is a 2 making two flush draws on the boardI check raise and three of us see the very brick like J on the riverI lead and villain from hand 1 calls me with a J having missed his flush He justified his call by saying that having bluffed me earlier he thought I was going for revenge Pot size? Just over 20k.

Hand 3 100/200My button, the two students to my left start to discuss how they will play BvB. It"s going to involve a raise, 3bet and a 4bet apparently.I tell them it won"t be BvB because I will be raising if it folds to me. Sure enough it does fold to me and I open ten deuce to 425SB makes it 800BB raises to 1550I make it 4100, SB folds and BB looks affronted at the fact that I"m not sticking to the plan.I say, "yeah, it was all a bit of fun, and I was going to raise any two here, but then I looked at my cards"He had me dominated as it happens with Q2 , good job he folded

My evening ended early when having lost with AK v44 I then failed to outrun pocket sevens twice in three hands. High hopes on the first run out where my K10 hit the 10 9 8 flop, but the inevitable 6 arrived on the turn.KJ didn"t get even a look in

Must improve my flipping skills.

btw

Will Kassouf?I know he"s a pain in the backside, I"ve been on a table with him in full flow, but I have to say that from what we"ve seen on the coverage from the WSOP he"s a substantially more attractive human being than the po-faced Josephy, Vayo, Hallaert et al.

Saturday 31st March will be my Birthday and I will be making my first entry into the WCOAP Main Event.But I guess it's a young man's game these days, and 64 yr old blokes with seven grandchildren win nowt.

Saturday 31st March will be my Birthday and I will be making my first entry into the WCOAP Main Event.But I guess it's a young man's game these days, and 64 yr old blokes with seven grandchildren win nowt.

Good luck in WCOAP Main Event David. I am sure you will make it through to the later stages. Age is just a state of mind. You are not old anyway, you are only a senior, not a super senior yet

Logged

England Team member WCOAP 2017APAT Christmas Cracker winner 2016Gold Medal-2012 Scottish Online ChampionshipPlayer of the Series October 2012Silver Medal-2011 English Amateur Poker Championship

Relaxed drive across the Pennines with The Fossil, pausing en route to get a cup of Starbucks Pike Place. A chance to see Lucy and Tom, and a quick chat with Ger before the game started.

The structure is amazingly good. Deep stacks and a 45 minute clock for a £110 buy in is what APAT is all about.

I started badly, an ill-advised bluff on the river got looked up with the words “curiosity kills you” and a sequence of unpleasant run outs and poor starting hands meant I had less than half my starting stack by the first break. By the dinner break I had stopped losing chips, but was still marooned at just under the 10k mark.Post-dinner I took advantage of the structure and worked extra hard on picking spots and managed to get a) above starting stack, and then b) to somewhere around 40k.A misjudged call of a shove cost me just under half my stack** but I closed the day with 28,700 chips plus a chair to continue my quest for a good return for Raise for Jack, and a bracelet for me.

**I opened AdQd from early position and got two callers. C-bet the KcXcX flop and got shoved on. I felt his shove was more weighted to having two clubs. He had KsQs and I really should have considered that he would stop and go with a lot of hands of that nature with a 10BB stack.If he had jammed pre I would have called and lost, he gave me the chance to get away from it which I failed to take.

well, back next Saturday with 18BB and a 60 minute clock. Easy decisions time.